The invention generally relates to hand-held tools and instruments and to procedures that deploy these instruments through tissue to access interior regions of the body.
There are many different types and styles of hand-held surgical instruments that physicians use to gain access into interior body regions. These instruments are intended to penetrate tissue by the application of pushing forces, twisting forces, or both in combination.
Often, a single surgical procedure will require the physician to employ different surgical instruments, each possessing a different shape, size, and function. Often, the procedure will require the physician to deploy these instruments in both soft and hard tissue to meet the diagnostic or therapeutic objectives of the procedure. The physician will often need an enhanced mechanical advantage to advance an instrument through tissue, particularly through dense or hard tissue, such as bone.
The common need to use different instruments in a given procedure, coupled with the need to accurately and reliably deploy each of these different instruments through both soft and hard tissue, often with an enhanced mechanical advantage, complicate the physician""s already difficult task. The need to handle different instruments in different ways for different purposes can distract the physician and lead to wasted effort, which can lengthen the overall time of the procedure.
The invention provides a surgical instrument with a handle design that allows initial placement of both a cannula and a trocar into interior body regions, and allows for later withdrawal of the trocar while leaving the cannula in place. The invention obviates the need for several instruments during surgical procedures, and simplifies interior access protocol. At the same time, the handle of the surgical instrument makes possible the reliable transmission, with increased mechanical advantage, of both torsional and longitudinal loads by the physician to the selected instrument.
One aspect of the invention provides a tool comprising a first functional instrument having a first handle and a second functional instrument having a second handle. The first functional instrument engages the second functional instrument, forming a composite instrument. The first handle mates with the second handle, forming a composite handle for the composite instrument. The composite handle includes a latching mechanism to resist disengagement of the first and second functional instruments.
Features and advantages of the inventions are set forth in the following Description and Drawings, as well as in the appended Claims.